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RICHARD LADD and JANE (11)

 RICHARD LADD. This is as far back as we can trace the Ladd ancestry. Richard and Jane Ladd were having children baptised in the north Surrey village of Barnes in the 1660s. We do not have a record of their marriage, nor a baptism for Richard.

An older Richard Ladd and his wife Susan had two daughters baptised in Barnes in 1641 and 1643. A trawl through the register shows no son Richard for them. He may be related, but born in a different parish whose registers have not survived.

 

JANE. Since we do not have the marriage of Richard and Jane, we do not know her maiden name and whether she came from Barnes or another parish.

The date of their children’s baptisms suggest Richard and Jane were born before the Civil War, which started in 1642. They would have come to adulthood during the Puritan Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell.

When the Puritans took over, as was common with Royalist and High Churchmen, the Rev James Cutts was ejected from his living in Barnes.

After the Restoration, and the overthrow of Puritanism, the living was given to Edward Layield, formerly Archdeacon of Essex. He had been imprisoned, ejected from one parish, fled to safety, but was ejected from his next parish too. In both places his estates were plundered. ‘He had at one time or other been confined in most of the jails about London.’[1] He was shut in the hold of a ship, and threatened with being sold into slavery, but refused to buy his freedom and was eventually cast ashore. Another time he was dragged out of church, where he was conducting a service, put on horseback with the Book of Common Prayer tied round his neck, and forced to ride through the streets of London while the mob jeered at him. After 20 years, with the Restoration, his preferments were restored and he was given the living at Barnes.

In the Civil War, Surrey leaned towards Parliament, but with no great enthusiasm. People particularly resented the billeting of soldiers.

As well as having to support them, the soldiers caused damage, stole (especially food for the pot like hens or fish) and above all brought the dreaded plague from London. In 1643 there were serious outbreaks of the disease in Wandsworth, Putney, Barnes, Kingston and Wimbledon. One innkeeper, Richard Edwards of Barnes, claimed that he had ‘lost £20 in business, because of a soldier that died in my house of the plague.’[2]

People were heavily taxed to pay for the war effort. More than 50 residents of Barnes were listed as regular tax-dodgers.

To add to the people’s hardship, in 1646 and 1649, harvests were poor. By 1650, the price of food had risen by 50%.

In 1648 a revolt by Surrey gentlemen and farmers was put down by force, with six killed and many injured.

It was in these difficult times that Richard and Jane grew up.

 

They probably married around 1661, Our certain knowledge of them begins with the baptisms of their children.

Baptisms. St Mary, Barnes.
1662 Feb 1  Richard
1664 Dec 29  William son of Richard Lad by Jane his wife.
1667 May 28  Thomas

We do not know Richard’s occupation, but his son William became husbandman, farming a small holding of land. It is likely that Richard was a husbandman too.

The parish of Barnes lies in the loop of the River Thames south of Hammersmith. The village lies in the west of the parish, close to the river.

 

Jane died in 1683, probably in her forties.
Richard lived another sixteen years, and was probably in his sixties when he died.

Burials. St Mary, Barnes.
1683 Jul 6  Jane Ladd
1699 Sep 10  Richard Ladd

 

[1] John Walker, Sufferings of the Clergy. 1714
[2] Richard Milward, “The Civil War in North-East Surrey”, Surrey History. Vol.III, No. 5. Surrey Local History Council.
[3] Local History Videos: Old Images of Barnes, London.

 

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